This year's High School Nationals is being
held at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. The playing area
is amazing. The main room holds the over 1300 players in attendance
under a beautiful blue lit ceiling and the top players play on the stage
next to a large window bringing in natural light to all the players.

Day one of the High School Nationals saw a large
number of upsets, including Alec Getz from Hunter College HS going down
to Peter Lessler from Washington, and Illinois' Eric Rosen lost
to New Jersey's Max Yelsky.

Peter Lessler

FM+two IM norms Alec Getz

Even with the large number of upsets
in the first two rounds, the standings have the expected teams and individual
leaders on top. In the K-12 Championship individual standings
a large group of National Masters and Experts, including Shinaksu Uesugi, Aleksandr Ostrovskiy and Scott Low. Despite Getz's early
upset, his team, Hunter College HS, still leads the K-12 Championship.

Shinsaku Uesugi

Jake Miller from Rockland Country Day
School from New York was kind enough to share his round two win over
Ryan Christianson with CLO:

Jake Miller

Will the trend of upsets continue? Or
will the top seeds hold their ground and win as expected? Follow the standings and pairings on the official results & pairings page and look
out for tomorrow's CLO report, which will include more games and photos
as the tournament leaders become clearer.

All-Girls Nationals

Just over 200 girls are competing in
the 2010 edition of the event. The All-Girls Tournament's first
day saw Jasmine Fermin and Najeebah Williams from Chess-in-the-Schools
best a field of 9 teams with a perfect 8-0 score to take the bughouse
title. Rochelle Ballantyne, also from Chess-in-the-Schools, took
first place on tie-breaks in the All-Girls blitz tournament over a field
of 34 players.

Rochelle Ballantyne

All-Girls Blitz Winners

1st Place - Rochelle Ballantyne,
7/8

2nd Place - Alexandra
Botez, 7/8

3rd Place - Apurva Virkud,
7/8

A group of strong girls including Anna
Matlin and Rochelle Ballantyne lead the way as the tournament's 18
and under section goes into round two this morning. Follow the All-Girls results & pairings here. Look for more updates on the Girls and the High School as the weekend continues!